


Fight

by thegirlwiththeprettybrowneyes



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gladiators, Alternate Universe - Magic, Violence, don't know what else to tell you, gladiation, they...gladiate I guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:14:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22310011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththeprettybrowneyes/pseuds/thegirlwiththeprettybrowneyes
Summary: There weren't a lot of lines that Neil refused to cross. He lied. He stole. He killed when necessary. There was one line that Neil had promised himself that he would never let himself be pushed over.Neil refused to die in front of Riko Moriyama.///////////////Gladiator AU
Relationships: Jeremy Knox/Jean Moreau, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 16
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

Neil sat on his knees in the sand of the arena. A rough hand pulled his head back by his hair and Neil felt the press of a blade at his throat. 

“Fight.” Kevin’s harsh voice hissed into Neil's ear. “Fight goddamn it, or it's both our heads on the line.” 

It wouldn't be, of course. Kevin had always been the emperor’s favorite. Kevin and Consul Moriyama had trained together. Fought together. Kevin's life wasn't at stake here. Neil's was. Death was the best case scenario here, and so Neil kneeled in the sand of the arena.

He heard the bloodthirsty screaming of the masses. They wanted a fight. A good fight, and a death at the end of it. Neil couldn't bring himself to give them the satisfaction. He had always had a bit of an attitude problem.

Neil laughed. His adam's apple scraped against the blade. He heard himself, voice hoarse from disuse, taunt Kevin. “It’d be in your best interest to slit my throat, two.” he said it loud enough that Kevin could hear him but soft enough that the audience, yelling for death, wouldn't.

“Why should I if you won't  _ fight _ ?” Kevin hissed at the same volume. He brought his blade away from Neil's neck and hauled him up. Neil had no choice but to stand.

Kevin held his sword out in front of him. A carefully practiced pose for the audience. The children at the arena would remember Kevin like this (sun glinting off his blade and shield, poised to strike and every inch his mother’s son) and later imitate him in the streets with makeshift wooden swords and shields. Neil knew because that's what he had done. What good had that done him? He was a prisoner in the arena, to be executed without mercy, his little peaceful stunt had made sure of that.

The point of Kevin's blade pressed lightly above Neil's heart.

_ Carve it out. _ Neil wanted to say. _ I was holding onto it but I've no use for it now. _

Neil had been holding a sword and shield when the guards dragged him into the arena. He had wasted no time in tossing it aside. He saw them now, too far to run for. 

Kevin saw him looking at the weak metal instruments and the corner of his lip curled up approvingly. Bastard.

“I can give you some time to recover your weapons.” He offered. His charity, fairly given, only angered Neil further. 

Neil laughed, because what else was there to do? “I was never much good with weapons. Kill me and be done with it.”

Kevin growled. Instead of killing Neil, he tossed aside his sword and shield and pounced, knocking Neil to the ground. 

Neil threw his arms up reflexively, throwing an elbow into Kevin's jaw. Kevin let out a pained call and Neil, despite himself, felt a little pleased. Kevin was quick to recover and slammed Neil's head into the ground. 

The crowd was raucous now. The roar of the voices and the roar of the blood in his ears melded together into the rolling hum of slaughter. 

Kevin was not gentle, he slammed Neil's head into the ground two more times, this was calculated, this was a message, this was  _ stay here and die or stand up and fight _ . Neil looked up to see who was deciding if he would live or die today. The dark eyes of Riko Moriyama glinted down at him from the Emperor’s box.

There weren't a lot of lines that Neil refused to cross. He lied. He stole. He killed when necessary. There was one line that Neil had promised himself that he would never let himself be pushed over.

Neil refused to die in front of Riko Moriyama.

He bucked Kevin off of him with a strength he didn't know he had. If he hadn't lost his faith in the gods long ago, Neil would have thanked them for smiling down on him.

Neil scrambled forward to straddle Kevin. Before he could move further, however, Kevin kneed him in the chest.

Air knocked from his lungs, Neil fell back and scrambled to his feet. Kevin stood as well, graceful, dignified.

Neil charged Kevin and pushed him as hard as he could. His goal wasn't to incapacitate him, but to throw him off his rhythm. 

Kevin hadn't expected Neil's strength and he was momentarily thrown.

Neil took the moments before Kevin could regain his footing to pick up Kevin's shield.

Kevin fought fair. Neil didn't have to.

Instead of using the shield for its intended purpose, Neil brought the shield down on Kevin's head. With a  _ clang _ audible even over the raging crowd, Kevin fell to the ground, out cold.

Neil wasted no time recovering Kevin's sword and holding it to Kevin's throat. He remembered himself and looked at Riko before making the cut.

Consul Moriyama was furious. He shook his head and Neil tossed aside the sword.

Immediately, he was surrounded by guards and dragged back into the cell he had spent the week before the fight in. It was a small cell, four stone walls and a cot. A small wooden door with a food slot, deadbolted, latched, and barred from the outside. A grate in the high ceiling allowed the last rays of sun to shine onto the walls.

Without looking to see who the guards were or whether they had left the cell, Neil fell into the small cot in the corner and straight into sleep.

* * *

_ “Run” _

_ “No.” _

_ An urgent grip on his arm. “Goddamnit Neil, we don't have time for this, you have to run.” _

_ Neil’s heart clenches.“I don't want to forget you.”  _

_ A tender hand on his face. Neil can’t see the face of the man who pulls him into a kiss, but Neil can't tamp down the feeling that rises in his chest. “We’re past that now. You don't have a choice.” _

_ “I love you, ______” The last world crackles out in a sound that sounds a little like thunder and a little bit like a city crumbling to dust and a little bit like a wildfire and a little bit like a flood. “I know you don't want to hear it but I had to tell you.” _

_ The man kisses him again and Neil desperately wants to remember who this man is because the feeling in his heart is love, unequivocally and without question. _

_ His lips were pulled away and Neil fell back. Back and downward into darkness. _

* * *

Neil awoke to something lukewarm and alcoholic being poured onto him.

The wine was sticky and uncomfortable and Neil reflexively pulled off his toga, too used to being woken up with water by his mother. His shorts were a rare luxury, they kept his legs from chafing as he ran.

A short blond man holding a now-empty goblet smiled at him from the other corner of the room. He was familiar in a painful way, like it would hurt for Neil to remember him.

"So they've given me a roommate.”

Neil immediately remembered his scars. “Fuck!” He pulled for the length of wine stained fabric.

“You've no need to cover yourself. Nothing I haven't seen before.” Neil didn't know if the man meant scars, or Neil's torso. The blond man grinned a little wider, and tossed the goblet to the ground. The movement was graceful, elegant, if irritatingly nonchalant. The sound clattered through the stone cell. He fell onto a higher, more comfortable looking cot than Neil's and again the movement was smooth, flowing. It was adorned with plush, soft pillows and a fur blanket. Luxuries Neil had not been afforded. There had not been another cot in his cell.

Neil looked around. He was no longer in his cell. But then where was he?

“You're in the hold.” The blond responded as if he could read Neil's thoughts.

The hold was the prison under the arena, guarded day and night by the emperor's best. Troy had long since been conquered, but the city still called them the Trojans. No one got out of the hold. Neil wasn't leaving this place alive.

Neil had thought the hold was reserved for the very worst of criminals. This man though...

Neil looked the man up and down. His muscles curved like they had been carved from marble. The moonlight shining through the grate in the ceiling caught the dramatic angles of his cheek, his collarbone. Yes, in the moonlight, he glowed. His eyes, fiery even in the darkness, analyzed Neil in turn. He was dressed in nicer fabric than any Neil had ever touched in his life. “You expect me to believe you're a prisoner?”

The man sat up. “Is that a comment on my height or my…” the man gestured to his smiling face “...general disposition?”

Neil tilted his head and pursed his lips. “Neither.”

“You always were a little shit.”

“What do you mean ‘always’? Do I know you?”

The blond looked taken aback by his own words. Like he hadn't meant to word his statement like that. He took a moment and shook off the confusion. “Your eternal shittiness is just apparent.” The blond smiled a little more and Neil couldn't help but note the way his smile didn't reach his eyes.

Neil scowled. “Are you going to give me a straight answer?”

The blond found that hilarious. He rolled over in the bed and made a shooing motion at Neil.

Neil looked down at the wine stained cot and toga, then looked back at the blond.

“Don’t look at me like that.” the blond said without turning around.

Rather than asking the man how he had known that Neil was looking at him, Neil asked “What's your name?” it was something his mother had taught him.  _ Names are powerful Abram, names give you an edge _ .

“______” a sound like thunder and ruin echoed through Neil's head. 

“I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.”

“______” the sound came again.

Neil raised an eyebrow. “Your name is brckachflkclghlkha?”

“Fuck off. If you think you're so clever, what's your name?”

“Neil.”

“What?”

“Neil?”

“Are you hearing that?” the  _ that _ curves up in an obnoxious little giggle.

“Hearing what?”

Thunder and Ruin turned and his eyes were something else now, under the haze. Not confusion, but yearning.

“Riot and Tides.”

Neil looked at the boy with caution. “Something of the sort. When you say your name.”

“I can't hear your name either.”

Neil looked around. “Why?”

“I know as well as you do. I will call you Sunset.”

“Sunset?”

“You look like a Sunset.”

Neil tilted his head. “Then you must allow me to call you Sunrise.”

“Sunrise?”

“We could be a matching set.”

Thunder and Ruin smiled in a way that was less smile and more resignation to decay. “I don’t like that phrase. Don't use it.”

“Not Sunrise then”

“Not Sunrise.”

Neil frowned and tried again. “I could call you Ruin.”

Ruin's eyes widened, just a fraction, became a little less empty.

“Hmm. You're wise. Or you have a smart mouth.”

“I prefer ‘attitude problem'”

Neil was having a hard time not losing himself in the slow, easy curve of Ruin's lips. “You think you have the wrong attitude?” Ruin drawled.

“I think everyone else does.” Neil said.

Ruin laughed and Neil  _ knew _ it. Neil knew that laugh like he knew what the sky looked like. Neil knew that laugh, and hearing it coming from this strange, familiar man almost broke him.

“Do we know each other?”

Ruin laughed “It seems that way, doesn't it? But no. I have no memory of you.”

“Your memory could fail you.”

“Never has before.” Ruin shrugged “besides, from what I've heard of you, you've been running all your life, and all my life, I've been here. Our paths could never have crossed”

All at once, the reality of the situation dawned on him. He had injured Riko Moriyama's right hand man, if he wasn't going to be executed soon, he would be a gladiator, and that would be the end of him.

“What am I going to do now?” the question slipped from his lips before he could catch it. The stone walls made the impossibly soft sound echo through the cell like the clatter of the goblet had.

“You do what we all do.” Ruin answered finally, long after the sound had stopped ringing through the cell. “You fight.”


	2. Chapter 2

Neil hadn't been allowed out of the cell in six days, Ruin had. 

It had grown into something of a routine. Neil would wake up to find Ruin already gone, and an apple and some honey under the slit in the door. 

Neil would eat his meager breakfast and he would train. If he was going to spend the rest of his life in the hold, then he would spend it healthy. 

Running in place, push-ups, sit ups, lifting his cot (he dared not touch Ruin's, lest he be cut by one of the hidden knives he had found hidden in the bedding. How Ruin slept among blades every night, only to wake up without a graze, Neil could not say). 

A small meal of pita, cheese, and wine would slide under the door at night, and as Neil ate, Ruin would enter like clockwork.

Tonight, Ruin was in a good mood.

“What is it?” Neil asked.

Ruin sat next to Neil and took the goblet from his hands.

Neil began to protest, but decided against it as he watched Ruin pull the cheap goblet to his lips and drink from it like it belonged to Emperor Moriyama himself. 

Neil was fascinated with the way that Ruin moved. He didn't talk or act like a rich man, but the way he moved was elegant, refined. Like his body was meant to belong to a king, but was given to him instead by the gods.

Ruin handed the goblet back to Neil and Neil felt eyes on his lips as he took a sip of wine.

“Tonight is my last night here.” 

Neil startled. “In service to the emperor?”

Ruin laughed. “In the hold, Rabbit, I'm not getting away from the palace any time soon.” 

“So is this to be our farewell meal?” Neil cracked dryly.

“Until my next sentence. I never seem to go long without being sentenced.”

“Perhaps mine isn't the only attitude problem.”

“Perhaps.” Ruin agreed. “but compared to you, I'm an upstanding citizen. How long are you in for, again?”

“For the hundredth time, no one told me” 

“Exactly, so long they didn't bother to tell you.”

“And you were in here for how long?”

“This was my second week.”

Neil frowned “That's not that long.”

“When it happens as frequently as it does, it doesn't have to be?”

“You must be doing something wrong to get locked up.”

Ruin laughed, a cruel edged thing. “Remind me what you did wrong to end up here?”

Neil's mood soured. “Exist.”

Ruin turned to Neil, eyebrow raised, mouth quirked upwards, almost impressed, definitely calculating, and Neil had the strangest sense that this had happened before. “You don't add up.”

“I'm not a math problem” Neil responded, like he always did. 

He knew what Ruin would say next, and Neil said it with him.

“I'll still solve you.” they said together.

“How did you do that?” Ruin asked, though the recognition in his eyes said that somewhere, deep down, he knew exactly how Neil had done it. 

“Another one of my many mysteries.” Neil shrugged.

“Tell me.” Ruin's voice was different now. Insistent. Bright. Clear. Untouched by any smiling haze.

“What will you give me, Ruin, for my secrets?”

“What will you take for them?”

“The sun, the stars, the moon itself would not be enough for the truth of me” Neil's eyes flitted up to the grate in the ceiling where the same moon smiled down at him.

Ruin's face was contemplative. “Will some wine work?”

Neil studied him. “Yeah, that works out fine.” 

Neil took his goblet back and drained it in one go, he didn't just want the alcohol, he needed it.

“Well. That looked…” Ruin's voice was slightly hoarse. “...refreshing.” his eyes lingered on Neil's wine-reddened lips.

“What would you like to know?”

Ruin considered. “Well, do you think you're going to die soon?”

“If I don't waste away in here, they'll execute me.” Neil answered honestly.

“Then tell me everything.”

Neil did.

* * *

Neil had been raised to kill. He'd been promised to be the executioner to the Moriyama branch even before Ichirou Moriyama had become emperor and appointed his brother as Consul. His father had been Nathan Wesninski, the already famous, and now dead executioner.

He, Kevin, Riko, and another boy, fated to become captain of the guard, Jean, trained with the gladiators, who had been twice their ages at the time. Neil remembered feeling so important, so proud to be training with the warriors.

Mary Wesninski had seen what her son was being shaped into. And she hadn't liked it.

One chilly December night, Mary had smothered Nathan in his sleep, then she toom her husband's favorite knife, coated it in poison, and stabbed it into his heart thirty seven times. Just to be safe.

Neil's mother had taken him and run. Far from the country, they were safe.

Then the Moriyamas got power hungry. Running one country hadn't been enough for them, so they started conquering. Troy was first. General Knox fought long and hard. The only problem was that he fought fair. The Moriyamas were unburdened by that little rule. With Troy's mighty army under their thumb, the Moriyamas spread through the land like a plague.

Neil and Mary never stood a chance.

Mary had died with a dagger through her chest. Neil had dragged her limp body over the border. He didn't have the resources for proper burial rites. But he had put a coin under her tongue, just in case the gods did exist, and burned her body. 

When her ashes had cooled, Neil pulled the blade that had killed her from the wreckage, barely damaged by the fire, and slipped it into his boot. He hadn't been raised to be wasteful.

Neil didn't have the geographical prowess that his mother had. He had travelled to strange places, he had been forced by circumstance to learn new skills, new languages, new ways to fight.

Then, there was the gap. The period of time that Neil couldn't remember. Most people in the Moriyama empire had one. Parts of their memory that they missed. Things that they weren't allowed to know. Every now and then, Neil would try to remember a word in another language and it would blow away like dust in the wind, he would try to recall the taste of a certain food, and it would turn to ash on his tongue. No one knew how the Moriyamas had done it. No one could remember.

Neil's gap, he had been able to figure out, was three years long. It was the longest gap he'd ever heard of. 

And then Neil was lost, scrambling around in a body, in a world that was three years too old for him. The Moriyama empire was endless now. Neil had money enough for two, it had kept him safe, for a while.

And then he'd been captured. At that point it had been a question of when, not how. It was an inevitability. 

* * *

Ruin stared at Neil with apprehension. "And now you're here."

"And now I'm here."

Ruin eyes opened and closed intermittently. The action was familiar, elegant in its smallness. It confirmed what Neil had been suspecting.

"Three years…" Ruin bit his lip and Neil knew that they bother knew that they'd known each other, in that gap.

Neil tilted his head. "How long is your gap?" Neil thought he knew the answer, hoped he knew the answer.

Ruin sank down into his bed, skillfully avoiding the hidden knives in the cushioning. "I don't have gaps like you."

Neil pointed at him. "You obviously do. Otherwise you would be able to hear my name." 

"I don't have gaps like other people do. I can remember everything, as long as I don't try too hard to remember. I remember, and in return, I don't feel."

"That doesn't make sense."

Ruin didn't say anything else. Neil watched him close his eyes. Everything about Ruin seemed so smooth and effortless. The easy rise and fall of his chest, his mouth, held slightly agape. "Abram."

Neil jolted. "What did you say?"

"Abram. Is that your name?"

Neil struggled to speak. "No. That's… that's what my mother called me. How did you know?"

"I remember it." Ruin said. His eyes opened and Neil couldn't read them. "On the edges of my memory. You and I. You gave me something, I brushed your hair out of your face, and I called you Abram."

Neil's breath came out in short, rapid bursts. He stared down at his hands. And still, he felt… safe. These were the things that the gaps couldn't remove, the feelings associated with the erased memories. "And I let you?"

Ruin was silent. But they both knew the answer. Some time ago, back in the three years Neil had forgotten, Neil had trusted him. Which answered the other question.

"You really can remember." Neil murmured. Ruin shrugged. "What did you mean you can't feel?"

"It's like falling asleep. The harder I try, the harder it is." Ruin's eyes were once again cloudy, the smile came back.

"What was it, in the memory? What did I give you?"

Ruin closed his eyes again. He furrowed his brow, it was strange and unnatural against the loopy smile on his face. "I can't… keep it. It's… it isn't there anymore, when I try to think about it, it's gone. Like when you forget an idea you had." Ruin sighed. "But I said it out loud. So now I can guess what happened."

"I gave you something." Neil said, testing out the words. "You brushed my hair out of my face and called me Abram."

"Yeah."

The grate in the ceiling made squares of moonlight on the floor, Neil traced them with his eyes.

"You'll be gone tomorrow." Neil observed. 

"You'll be dead soon." Ruin agreed. His observation was crueler. It was obviously meant to hurt Neil, but Neil couldn't take it seriously when there was so little bite behind it.

"It was nice to see you again."

Ruin sighed again, and turned to sleep.

Neil watched him a little while longer. There was a feeling in his chest, like warmth, but kinder. It was an empty feeling because Neil didn't know what lost memory was bringing it on. Neil felt it anyway and smiled. He didn't say anything as childish as  _ goodnight _ , he turned, and then he went to sleep. Ready to wake alone in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the math problem line so much but it's everywhere? One of these days I'm gonna write something like  
> Neil: You know what? I am a math problem, learn calculus bitch. Solve me, daddy.


	3. Chapter 3

Weeks passed, then a month was gone and Neil was still alive. He hadn't talked to anyone except the guards since Ruin left.

He had begun to mark the days by scratching lines into the wall. The sun rose and set and Neil watched it pass by. For a few minutes every day, the sun hung directly overhead, above the ceiling grate. For those few glorious minutes, Neil would stand in the patch of sun, and be still and warm.

Neil, it seemed, was healthier now in prison, with three square meals a day and nothing to do but exercise. He felt himself growing slowly stronger, more limber. He would make a pretty corpse. Every day, Neil expected to be taken to the gallows, and every day, his expectations were exceeded.

On the shortest day of the year, the soldiers returned to the hold. Neil had more company then. No one in his cell, of course, people were too afraid to sleep in Ruin's knifed-up bed, but outside his cell, he heard the calls of young men learning to fight. 

Neil's cell, he learned, was right below the training grounds. It was pleasant to hear voices. And voices he recognized at that. Every morning, Jean Moreau called out commands, and every day Kevin Day taught strategy, and every day Neil listened intently to the lessons. 

Those were not the only things that Neil listened to. Gossip was rampant around the training camp. Neil learned to filter out the useless information. Neil did not care how good Allison Reynolds in the archery camp looked, but Kevin and Riko were oft discussed in low, reverent tones. And so, it seemed, was Ruin. The first time it had happened, Neil thought it had started raining, he huddled under the covers of his bed for a minute or two, hoping not to drown, but after a dry while, Neil realized someone had just said Ruin's name. 

Ruin was discussed in mixed tones of awe and fear. More fear than awe really. Supposedly, Ruin and Kevin were inseparable.

Neil was, somehow, not a topic of conversation, though he supposed it was arrogant of him to expect to still be so relevant after a month. Still, he had beaten the great Kevin Day in battle. Maybe it had been dismissed as a fluke.

One day, Neil found out why.

Soldier 1, a lazy sort, but kind sounding. "God, I wish I could skip drills."

Soldier 2, meaner, sharper. "Yeah well you're not  _ the great _ Kevin Day." 

Soldier 1 "You think he's really  _ never _ been beaten in battle before?"

Soldier 2 "Trust me, if someone had beaten number two, they'd be a legend."

"Hey!" Neil called from below. "I beat him! Hey!"

They continued on as if they hadn't heard. "Yeah but there's no way that's ever happening, he's always either training or fighting."

"That's not true!" Neil tried louder, desperate. He knew that something was blocking the sound from the prisons. How many prisoners were screaming out for freedom now, he wondered.

"I bet I could beat him if I tried."

"Hey!" Neil called to no avail. He sat in his cot and stared at the ground. He said silently, a reminder, a prayer "I beat him. I know I did."

Neil realized, after listening to Kevin described as  _ an undefeated warrior _ multiple times, that it must have been erased from people's memories. Made into a gap.

That must have been handy. Neil wondered how many times the Moriyamas'  _ undefeated armies _ had been defeated. How many wars Neil had forgotten.

Neil wondered why they hadn't bothered to erase his victory from his own mind. Maybe they wanted him to be the only one to know.

The sun rose, it hovered over the grate, then it set. The sun rose, hovered, and set.

Two months. Three. Four.

It got harder, every day, to make a mark on the wall. To know that this was the best it would ever get, for the rest of his life. He wanted something to talk to him. To see him. To prove to him that he still existed.

Neil sat in the middle of his cell, eyes closed. And felt the first rays of light hit his back. Somewhere else in the hold, there was the sound of a door unlocking. The dry heat of the sun warmed the back of his neck. The back, then the top of his head. Another door unlocked. Neil didn't care, he was busy being warm.

The square of light was directly overhead when Neil's door opened, and standing, backlit, in shining armored glory, was Ruin. "You're alive."

"How observant."

Ruin gave him a once over. "Your hair is getting long."

Neil didn't want to close his eyes, not even to feel the slowly moving warmth of the sunlight. He wouldn't be caught off guard, he was stronger now, the energy that he could no longer put into running being channeled into muscle training. "Is that a problem?" This was the most he had said to anyone for months.

"Yes. Today, you have an important meeting. Not that I care but you'll want to make an effort."

Neil scowled. "Of course, let me just cut my hair with all of the tonsor's tools I have."

Ruin surveyed the room and laughed. "You haven't touched my bed. What a gentleman."

Neil had tried to avoid even looking at Ruin's bed. It wasn't nice, being reminded that other people were on the outside, living there lives when Neil would never get to. Now though, is seemed foolish that he hadn't taken a fur off of the bed and shaken the blades out. Neil had never claimed to be smart. "Why are you here? You're not getting locked up. You don't have any guards with you." 

"I'm under strict orders to deliver you to my employer." Ruin, still smiling eerily. Ruin's employer… Kevin Day. 

"He'll be the one to kill me?"

Ruin shrugged "We'll see."

So today would be the day Neil died. He looked down at the sunlight pooling in his hands, let it play over his fingers for all the time he had left. The square of light moved slowly over him. The warmth left the back of his neck. The back, then the top of his head. Then it was gone.

Ruin was still waiting. He must have been waiting the entire time that Neil was saying goodbye. It struck Neil then, that he was being rude. He hadn't had to care about manners in so long, hadn't had the luxury of impatience. Ruin, however, hadn't seemed bothered.

"Okay," Neil said, standing. "Let's go."

Neil let himself be led through the stretching halls of the hold, corridors turning and looping over themselves over and over, none familiar and all strangely silent. One-way sound blocking. His only guide was Ruin. 

Finally, they came to a door. It didn't lead outside. Neil followed Ruin into a small room with chairs and mirrors. The castle tonstrina, where the emperor and guards got haircuts and shaves. No one was in it except a tall man with light brown curls.

"Nicky." Ruin giggled. "I've brought you a sacrifice."

"This is your employer?" Neil asked.

"This is my Nicky. He's the castle tonsor."

"And your favorite cousin." Nicky said. "Who is this?"

Ruin looked him over "A dead man."

"Neil." Neil introduced himself. "It's nice to meet you."

"Oh ______, you've brought me a charmer!" A sound like destructive wind where Ruin's name was supposed to be. Nicky seemed nice. It was a shame he was the last person Neil would ever meet. It seemed strange to be meeting someone after months alone, with only the voices of others for company. Neil was starved for new features, he drank in Nicky's deep eyes, his smooth, sun-darkened skin.

Nicky seemed glad for the attention. He gestured Neil over to a seat by a basin of water, chattering all the while. "It's so nice to meet you! ______ brings anyone to meet me, he's embarrassed, he's afraid they'll like me better than him."

"I'm afraid you'll talk them to death." Ruin stood by the entrance and watched. Neil sat down silently. Nicky's fingers touched Neil's scalp and Neil shuddered in a gasp. 

"Are you alright?" Nicky asked hurriedly.

Neil nodded. "It's been a while since anyone's touched me."

Nicky looked up at Ruin. "______, who is this? Where did you find him?"

"He's a prisoner from the hold." Ruin smiled. "I'm taking him to see Kevin after this."

Nicky's hands stilled in Neil's hair. "Oh."

Ruin sat in a chair by a mirror, no matter where he was, he always managed to look like he was too good to be there. "I'm not going to be responsible if Kevin thinks he doesn't look presentable, so do what you do and make him look pretty. If he dies at least his corpse will be worth looking at."

Nicky's hands moved again, slower and gentler. He felt warm water on his scalp, washing away the dirt and grime and grease of the months in the hold. The last person to do this had been his mother. 

No. That wasn't true. Someone else had. Someone else must have, but Neil couldn't remember who. His eyes flitted to Ruin, smiling passively at nothing. Maybe Neil had washed his own hair, maybe he'd gone to another tonstrina. Nicky's fingers were quick and deft. He maneuvered Neil to another chair. He pulled out a leather bundle of tools. Neil closed his eyes to avoid his reflection in the mirror. He knew his hair must be fully red now. He would be the splitting image of his father now. 

"______, I'm not going to have time to shave his face, help me out." Nicky called. His voice was deeper, more grave than it had been before. He'd lost most of his chattiness. "I'm sorry if you were trying for a beard, but if you're going to die today, it would be better to shave now than later."

Neil nodded his understanding. He hadn't been trying to grow a beard anyway.

He had called Ruin to shave Neil's face. It was strange to imagine Ruin doing so pedestrian. Neil was almost tempted to ask if Ruin knew how, but there Ruin was, picking up the novacila and sharpening it against the band in the set of tonsor's tools, like he'd done it millions of times before. Even this movement was regal, hypnotic. Neil watched him with rapt attention and Ruin allowed himself to be watched. Ruin dipped his hands in a pot of oil and smeared it haphazardly on Neil's face, his rough fingers brushing against the uneven, patchy hairs on Neil's cheeks and jaw. The tips of his fingers brushed against Neil's lips. Ruin repeated the movement a few more times until Neil's cheeks and chin were covered. Then he picked up the novacila and held the blade against Neil's cheek. Besides his eyelids fluttering shut, Neil dared not move. The razor dragged itself down his right cheek once, twice, three times, not nicking him once. Then it was at his chin. It dragged down, lower and lower until the blade was at Neil's throat. Neil held his breath. The blade did not move. Neil opened his eyes. Ruin stared straight into his eyes, no longer smiling, blade poised to cut.

Was this how executions happened here? Out of the way, hidden in kindness? 

On the one hand, Neil understood it. He couldn't very well be made an example out of, that meant the Moriyamas would have to admit that he'd beaten Kevin in the Coliseum. On the other hand, Neil had hoped for more than this. Being killed by someone he could no longer remember, in a place he barely knew. Some part of him, deep down, had hoped he would escape this somehow, and live a long life somewhere with enough sun that he would never feel cold again.

Ruin didn't move. Neil wondered what he was waiting for. Do it already. Neil wanted to say. Every treacherous beat of his heart was another moment spent hoping. If Ruin was going to kill him, Neil wished he would just get it over with already.

Ruin moved the blade to Neil's left cheek and Neil's heart began to beat harder and faster. Was he being toyed with? But no, Ruins movements were quicker now, like he had done this before. Who knew, maybe he had. And suddenly Neil's face was smooth again. Ruin moved to another basin of water to clean his tools.

"Thanks." Nicky murmured, still working silently on Neil's hair.

Neil finally gathered the courage to sneak a glance at the mirror in front of him. He looked paler than he had before. More muscular though. Plump where there had previously been gaunt hollows. He saw bits of his mother in his reflection and that somehow hurt more than seeing his father ever had. His hair curled, rich auburn, over his head. He looked stronger, older somehow. Except that he was so, so pale. Like he was a corpse waiting to happen.

"You're all set." Nicky said, laying down his scissors. Neil turned. And Nicky gave his face an affectionate brush. "I hope to see you again."

Neil smiled. "And I, you. Thank you for this."

"Nothing to thank me for."

Ruin faked a gag at the exchange. "Are you done? Is this done? Can we go?" His face was deceptively light, masking the grimness of his eyes and his voice.

The walk to Kevin's quarters passed by quickly, Neil catalogued the new lightness of his head, the clean feeling of his scalp, Ruin's quick, measured footsteps ahead of him. Ruin's steps always seemed to be the same length apart. Neil wondered if he had practiced that.

Ruin finally stopped outside a tall, ornate door. 

Neil stopped too, prepared for his death.

Ruin turned. "You don't have to go in right away."

"Why would I wait? I have nothing to leave behind, no messages to deliver, no one to deliver messages to. No one will miss me when I'm gone."

Ruin shrugged "Perhaps. Perhaps not."

"Have you remembered anything else?" Neil asked, hoping for a crumb of answers while he could still get them.

Ruin's face was sharper, his eyes were more focused. "Nothing that matters."

"Tell me. Ple-" Neil cut himself off. He didn't know why, but he couldn't use that word around Ruin.

Ruin's already stony face went even harder. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because at some point, we meant something to each other." Neil said. Ruin didn't reply. "Don't pretend we didn't. You were so important to me that they had to take your name away. I can't look at you without it hurting me a little. I might die, sk if you have something to say, then tell me."

Ruin said the words like they didn't mean anything. “You aren’t nothing. You’ll never be nothing.”

The words hit Neil like a tidal wave, everything seemed off kilter. He felt wetness on his cheek. His hand reached up slowly and found tears. "I don't… why?"

Ruin watched him, cold and still. Ice. "Ask me again if you survive. I've said what I needed to."

Neil didn't push it. He swiped at his eyes and tried to compose himself. He would face Kevin Day with dignity.

Ruin opened the door and there he was, sitting, imperious and supreme on the seat next to the empty throne. It was hard to imagine him as the man that Neil had knocked out cold all those months ago. He was the only person in the room aside from Neil and Ruin. Kevin Day, dressed richly in a green tunic. "Neil Josten."

Neil waited for the judgement. He stood in wait.

"How would you like a job?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Neil Josten, unintentional sneaky boy


	4. Chapter 4

"What?"

"A job." Kevin continued. "Work. A way to make money."

Neil turned and looked at Ruin, trying to gauge what his reaction to this situation should be. Ruin was watching with rapt attention, an expression of shocked amusement painted on his face. He hadn't known what was happening either. Neil turned back to Kevin, who was watching him with practiced detachment.

"Why would I need to make money?"

Kevin raised an arched brow. "To exchange for goods and services."

"Up until an hour ago, I lived in the hold, I don't have any goods or services to look forward to." Neil scoffed. Kevin said nothing, but the implication was there. "I'm not being set free, am I?"

Kevin shrugged. "You won't be living in the hold if you take the job."

Neil scowled. "That's not what I asked."

Kevin's eyes narrowed. "I am going to lay out your choices very clearly. You can either take the job, and you'll be rich and never want for anything again, or I can kill you, and you'll be dead and never want for anything again. You have nothing, no one. You have nothing to lose but your life."

"Who says I'm not willing to lose it?" Neil spat. He held no love in his heart for Kevin Day, if it was working for him or death, Neil wasn’t sure which one he’d pick.

Kevin’s face faltered, for a moment, Neil saw through the kingly facade. Kevin was hurt, confused, and underneath all that, he was scared. He needed Neil to take this job, which meant, no matter how many rich green togas or seats next to the emperor, Neil was the one in power here. Kevin stared at him for a second. "Would working for me really be so bad?"

Neil scoffed away his pity. "What exactly would you have me do?"

Kevin regained some composure. "______, are you certain no one else is in the room?"

Neil looked back for Ruin, only to find he was no longer in his place by the door. Instead, he appeared by Kevin's side. "We're all clear."

Kevin "Well, Neil, in about six months, I'm going to leave."

The words raced through Neil's mind. "What, like on vacation?"

"No, like permanently." Kevin said.

Neil blinked. Once. Twice. "Why?"

"Because I'm miserable. I have been for a while. The only thing I had was being undefeated, and you took that away. And then I started to remember through my gaps." 

It was hard to imagine that even someone so high up had gaps too. Was there no one who remembered everything? Remembering through gaps wasn't unheard of, if the information was emotionally important, then the emotions might trigger the memories. Neil had tried to fill in his gaps, but allowing himself to feel enough, to lose control of his mind enough to let his emotions take over, that would have been too much for Neil to handle. If Neil surrendered control, he would never get it back. "What did you remember?"

"Being beaten. Over and over and over again. On the battlefield, in the arena, by Riko himself. I never knew why I was so scared of him. I could never remember." Kevin looked up. "And by you."

"What?" Neil said. "How is that possible? I've only fought you once."

Kevin sighed. "I know you think that. I know you can't remember, but you and I have fought seventeen times since you were captured. As well as all the times you fought animals. Or beasts. Or other prisoners."

Gaps. Neil was swimming in gaps. It made sense. Pieces clicked in his head. New scars, his growing muscles, aches and pains in places there hadn’t been aches and pains before. He’d thought that it was the size of his cell. He’d thought he was clumsy in the small space. He knew now that the marks on his wall didn't add up. He'd thought he was crazy. He’d thought the solitude was driving him mad. He’d been used as a prizefighter without ever knowing it. “How long have I been here?”

“One year.” Kevin answered.

Neil's stomach dropped. His mind spiraled. One year. He'd been here for a year. He looked Kevin in the eye. "You've been keeping me locked up for a year?"

Kevin looked like he wanted to argue, but he, wisely, nodded. "Yes."

Neil grit his teeth. "Then in what world would I  _ possibly _ work for you?"

"I can get you out of here."

Well. That changed things. If Kevin Day could get him out, odds were, he wouldn't be chased. Odds were, this was Neil's first ever chance at true freedom. "What would you have me do?"

"In half a year, on the shortest day, when the soldiers return, I am going to stage a coup against emperor Moriyama. I would like you to help me."

Neil looked, then, at Ruin, who was unmoved by all the casual revolutionariness of Kevin's statement. Ruin, who was staring straight back at him. Neil faced Kevin again.

"What would you have me do until then? While away the days without knowing how many have passed? Shall I sit in my cell and wait? Shall I finally grow a beard?"

"If you accept my offer, I will make arrangements for you to be a member of my personal guard. You will be given your own quarters, you will have access to the training grounds, and you will be set to remember your fights."

"And in return?"

"In return you will sow doubt into the minds of the other warriors and aid me whenever I need you."

Neil looked to Ruin once more. "And what do you think?"

"Excuse me?"

"Am I walking into a trap?" Neil continued.

Kevin did not seem to enjoy this line of questioning. "I'm not trapping you!"

Neil scoffed. "Funny how I wasn't asking you."

Ruin shrugged. "I wouldn't know if this was a trap. Up till now I thought I was to kill you."

"Do you trust him?"

Ruin's answer came without hesitation. "I don't trust anyone. But Kevin Day is not the betraying type. He doesn't have the face for it."

Kevin's face, at the moment, resembled a very angry lemon. Neil could see what Ruin meant.

Neil turned back to Kevin "Fine then. I will take your job."

Kevin was pleased. "Excellent. ______ will show you to your quarters."

Ruin raised an eyebrow and smiled "Oh, I will, will I?"

Kevin turned to Ruin with smug satisfaction. "Yes. Your request for a new companion has been fulfilled. Say hello to your new partner."

Ruin stared back down at Neil. "How. Generous."

* * *

"So." Neil said as Ruin led him through the tangled halls of the palace. "What do we do now."

"We do nothing." Ruin said, like a petulant child. "You leave me alone. We're here." 

They came through a door, and Neil was greeted with the most luxurious living arrangement he had ever had in his life. The room had no beds in it, which meant that Neil's bed was through one of the many doors in the wall. A small altar to the household gods sat above the hearth, and the wooden table was beautifully crafted. Several bottles of wine lay on it. Ruin was apparently a heavy drinker.

"Your room is through that door. Try not to bother me. Put your things down and get settled." Ruin gestured to Neil's lack of personal belongings and laughed like he'd made a joke.

"And that's it?"

Ruin sobered "What else would I do?

"We could talk." Neil said, wondering why he was even bothering to try. Ruin unsettled him in ways he didn't know he could be unsettled in, and yet something about him demanded to be known.

"I have nothing to talk to you about."

"I knew you once, right? I'm still that man." Neil said. It was evidently the wrong thing to say. Ruin stopped on his way to his room, and suddenly, he was right in Neil's face, Neil was caught between Ruin and a wall, there was nowhere he could look but down at Ruin.

"Do you know what makes a person who they are, Sunrise?"

The question was odd and unexpected, but Neil considered it nonetheless "I hadn't really thought about it… their lives? Their experiences."

"Close." Ruin nearly spat. "But no dice. What makes a person is their memories. Who cares what a person has lived through? What makes them who they are, is how their mind interprets that information, that shapes the lessons they learn, that shapes the way they treat others, the way they think. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"I think I'm following, yes."

"Good. That means the Moriyamas have found a way to change who people are. Who cares what events have taken place? If no one can remember them, then they didn't happen. Do you know how many rebellions the Moriyamas have crushed without lifting a finger? How many people have just disappeared off the face of the earth? Because I have lost count. But who cares, right? Because no one else remembers them, so they didnt happen. Kevin has just begun to understand how truly powerful the Moriyamas are, but we both know. Or at least we did. And then you forgot."

Neil was struck with an overwhelming sense of history. That he had known something for a lifetime and then forgotten it. 

"And that has another nasty little implication. No matter how much you try to be the man I knew, no matter how much you want to be? You're. Not. Him. You're just a shell wearing his face." Ruin stepped back and he took all of the air in the room with him. "Welcome home." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they were roommates!


	5. Chapter 5

Kevin's personal guard was a lot smaller than Neil expected it to be, which was to say that it consisted of Neil and Ruin and no one else.

Routine was something familiar to Neil, and this was no different. Breakfast was much more crowded, now. Eyes held on him and flitted away when Neil looked up from his food. It was much better than being alone. Still, Neil didn't know what the rules were. Being watched and studied, meant that Neil had no room for error.

The training grounds came after breakfast. Neil didn't train with the other soldiers, he was meant to train with Ruin and Kevin, but Kevin was off being charming and popular, while valiantly leading the soldiers. Which left Ruin, who Neil could not imagine challenging.

_ You're just a shell wearing his face. _

Neil, instead, decided to intimidate with his competence. Just to prove that he could kill anyone without trying. 

The training grounds were incredibly well-stocked. Neil had always had to deal with rusty, dull blades, unbalanced bows, but here, every weapon fit in his hands like it was made for him.

He stretched out and thanked the gods he had stayed active in his cell. As he stretched, he felt eyes on him. He looked up and found Ruin.

Neil leaned deeper into his stretch and Ruin looked away, a thrill of pleased satisfaction ran through him. Another piece of the puzzle began to move into place. Neil didn't pay attention to it. He would have time for it later.

_ You're just a shell wearing his face. _

Neil looked away, an instant, reflexive reaction. Ruin’s words echoed in his head. Neil, as a rule, tried not to think about his gaps too hard, he had come out of the time with new feelings and muscle memories towards almost everything. It seems like every time he got his feet out under him, his past sent something that knocked him down all over again. Ruin was the first thing that didn't feel like that. Neil knew 

Weapons-wise, knives were easiest, so they went first, Neil lined up a few targets, each a little harder to hit than the last. It wasn't like he tried to get people's attention, but if they were already watching him and happened to see what he was doing and decide that he wasn't to be trifled with, then that was their business, wasn't it? Neil wasn't flashy, he didn't show off, but simplicity was its own force of intimidation.

Five knives, five bulls-eyes. Forty people he wouldn't have to worry about in the future.

Two soldiers bounded up to him. "How did you learn to do that?" Neil recognized the voice. Soldier one. Matt Boyd. It was nice to put a face to the name.

"Practice." Neil answered and went to retrieve his knives. 

The other soldier huffed and shifted his weight. Soldier two. Seth Gordon. Neil cocked a brow. Seth averted his gaze and Matt snorted. 

The whole interaction was familiar, somehow. Matt "Have we met?" 

Neil shrugged. Perhaps they had met before, but if they had, it was nothing Neil remembered. "Do you watch the gladiator matches?”

Matt hissed. “Not if I can help it, you only get put in those if you’re in real trouble. Why?”

“I thought you might have seen me there.” Neil shrugged. “We must have met another time then. Nothing in the past is certain."

Matt frowned, confused, before understanding. It was as if, for a moment, he had forgotten that gaps existed. Neil's eyes flicked to Ruin, who was watching them and pretending that he wasn't.

Neil had moments like that too, where he didn't think he'd forgotten anything, but now, he'd forgotten too much to have the luxury of thinking that his mind was whole.

"Then I suppose I'll err on the side of caution." Matt smiled. "I'm Matt Boyd, this is my friend, Seth Gordon."

"It's nice to meet you." Neil said. "Neil. Josten."

"So, the gladiator fights. That’s where you come from?” Seth asked. 

“Seth,” Matt chided.

“What? He shows up with no warning, he’s apparently a member of Day’s guard? How aren’t you curious?”

Matt rubbed his neck sheepishly. “Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be polite.” he muttered

Neil, despite himself, smiled. “I just got up from the hold. Kevin offered me a job.” That silenced them. Neil moved up to the targets to pull the knives from them. Surprisingly, the two boys followed. “So, what do you do to train around here, drill-wise?”

“Well, I have different drills. I’m a cavalry soldier.” Matt said this with some modicum of pride. Neil didn’t understand it. Matt was huge, muscular, Neil had no clue why he would waste all that raw potential on something like archery.

Neil tilted his head and pulled at a knife that was particularly lodged in its target, it came reluctantly loose. “Then what are you doing here?”

“Well, if I come here with Seth, then I get to see Dan Wilds,” Wilds. She led her own small force of warriors. She didn’t seem to have any use for an archer. But then Neil looked at the look on Matt’s face. So that was it. Neil understood Matt less than he thought he would. “And if he walks me back to my camp, then he gets to see Allison Reynolds.”

Reynolds from archery. Neil had heard varied tales of her beauty, it seemed, from a matching look on his face, that Seth Gordon was of the majority opinion.

Neil looked over to where Ruin was, for some reason, to find that Ruin was no longer there.

“Are you looking for Minyard?” Matt asked.

“Who?” Neil asked back.

“Angry blonde.” Seth deadpanned. His hand hovered at thigh height. “About yea high.”

“That’s his name?”

“Yeah, ______ Minyard. Why?”

Neil shrugged. Pieces continued to move themselves into place and Neil continued not to pay them any mind.

“There must be something that all soldiers do.”

Seth shrugged. “We all run. Why? Do you want to race?”

Neil, despite himself, smiled.

* * *

The soldiers ate together, along with the consul. Solely to make things difficult for Neil, it seemed. Ruin sat alone, laughing at nothing and not eating. Kevin sat at the other end of the table, next to Consul Riko Moriyama. Neil sat wherever there was an empty seat. If it wasn't a good way to meet people, it was at least a good way to eavesdrop.

It struck Neil that most of his job was espionage and diplomacy, trying to influence minds toward Kevin and away from the Moriyamas. It struck Neil that he wasn't very good at espionage or diplomacy. Still, there was more distrust in the Moriyamas than Kevin originally thought.

Still, it seemed that everyone had to be reminded of gaps. They all had the same confused reaction when Neil brought them up. It seemed if Neil was supposed to sow distrust, the gaps seemed a good place to start. The trouble was, he didn't know what had been erased in people's minds.

On Neil's third week, Consul Moriyama called him over.

“Josten! Sit by me.”

Neil was bound by protocol to accept the offer. He sat, slow and awkward, by Riko Moriyama.

“How are you finding your time at the palace?” Riko asked, his voice polite and lilting. Kevin, by his side, was stiff as a board. 

Neil reached for a diplomatic answer, the kind Kevin seemed to give all the time. Or, well, the kind that Neil supposed he gave all the time. Neil had never heard Kevin give a diplomatic answer to anything. “It’s… Comfortable”

Riko laughed like Neil had told a joke. Kevin, by his side, was silent. Riko held his goblet up to his lips. "The other soldiers have told me of your skill on the training grounds."

"Oh, but you are too kind." Neil tried not to spit the words out, he was not skilled in games of politics and calculation.

"And you are too modest. Perhaps your imprisonment was decided too soon. You may yet prove useful." There it was. Riko mentioned the imprisonment and a wave of whispering washed over the table.

"I wonder," Ruin called from across the table. He grinned from above his goblet "at how many prisoners whose fates you have decided on too soon."

Neil blinked. And just like that, doubt. Raised eyebrows across the table, quickly smoothed out faces. No one trusted Ruin, but he had picked at the weakness in Riko's statement. Trust in the Moriyamas was tenuous, if one looked in the right places. If that doubt could be planted by someone that the soldiers trusted…

Riko's steely eyes glinted. "You've spent enough time in the hold to know." Not a perfect dismissal, but good enough to turn away eyes. Seth Gordon, Neil noticed, was still watching

Ruin giggled and said nothing more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Neil's inner monologue: I'm not flashy, I don't show off.  
> Neil IRL: Hey Ruin? Ruin? Are you looking at me? Ruin look I can throw knives! Ruin? Hey Ruin look at me!

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment or leave kudos if you liked it!


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